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SYDNEY: A rare phenomenon causing "the strongest Antarctic warming on record" is set to deliver more pain to dought-stricken Australia, scientists said on Friday (Sep 13).

The unusual event, known as "sudden stratospheric warming", started in the last week of August when the atmosphere above Antarctica began heating rapidly, scientists at Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said in a report.

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"The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting the strongest Antarctic warming on record, likely to exceed the previous record of September 2002," it said.

The upper atmosphere above the South Pole has heated up from close to minus 70 to about minus 25 degrees Celsius, bureau climatologist Andrew Watkins told AFP.

"It has leapt up more than 40 degrees warmer than normal in the course of three weeks," he said.

The winds track northwards until they are over Australia, blowing eastwards across the dry centre to New South Wales and Queensland states, which are currently struggling through one of the driest periods on record.

"You start getting more winds from central Australia, from the desert and less winds from the ocean, so they tend to have drier, warmer conditions in New South Wales and Southern Queensland," Watkins said.

The impacts of the Antarctic event in Australia will start to arrive in the coming weeks, and be particularly felt in October before the weather pattern is expected to break down in December or January.

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